Pet Memorials

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My Dog of Many Miracles

Maude, a blue merle Australian shepherd, played a big part in creating this website as well as many of the ACVIM Foundation’s publications. Maude introduced me to the world of specialty veterinary medicine in 1999, when a series of worsening seizures landed us in the office of ACVIM Diplomate Dr. Ron Schueler, a neurologist who now practices in Westminster, Maryland.

We could never find a reason for Maude’s seizures (we did an MRI, all the blood tests, and so on), which stopped almost a year to the day from when they’d started. From there, Maude took me on to other veterinary adventures—from recurring urinary tract infections and immune mediated thrombocytopenia to a heart murmur and cancer.

Whenever she could, she became the exception to conventional veterinary wisdom. Dr. Schueler called it “Maude’s rules.” At one time or another, Maude saw every variety of ACVIM Diplomate except for a large animal internist.

Along the way, I learned a tremendous amount about veterinary medicine. So when Paula Mejia came in as the ACVIM Foundation’s new development director in 2005, I offered to help her with writing the website and publications. It’s been a terrific collaboration.

Maude left us on September 10, 2007, a week shy of her 12th birthday. Her seizures had started up again a couple of years ago, but were well controlled with sodium bromide. On September 6, she entered The Ohio State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital with what looked like a mild case of pancreatitis. Then, two days later, she suffered a prolonged seizure while in the critical care unit. She held on for two days longer, but despite OSU’s heroic efforts, we had to let her go. Another MRI revealed that Maude had a massive tumor at the back of her nasal cavity. For once, she gave us a clear-cut diagnosis and decision—and she called the rules to the end.

I will miss her every day.

So many veterinarians crossed paths with Maude, it's impossible to name them all.

Special thanks to Drs. Jamie Molinelli and James Carlson, who added traditional Chinese veterinary thinking to Maude's medical mix.

Much gratitude to ACVIM Diplomates Ron Schueler (neurology) and Karen Faunt and Mark Hitt (small animal internal medicine).

My deepest appreciation to Dennis Chew, DVM, DiplACVIM (small animal internal medicine), Professor (The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine) and the caring, compassionate professionals at The Ohio State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital—who gave their all during Maude's final hours.

Remembering Maude

Here's what I'd like you to remember most about Maude's story. Without thinkers like Dr. Chew and his colleagues in the world of academic veterinary medicine, Maude would not have lived as long, or as well, as she did.

Most of the new knowledge in veterinary medicine originates at universities. The vets we see every day, as well as the specialists we sometimes seek out, owe much of what they have learned to the ACVIM Diplomates working in our colleges of veterinary medicine.

Of everything the ACVIM Foundation does, the most important, for dogs like Maude, is generating new knowledge—and educating the veterinary teachers, researchers, and clinicians of the future. Your donation makes that possible.

Maude: September 17, 1995 – September 10, 2007